When I was a little kid mom used to tell me: "It's already 18:00, go and do your prayer. You need to pray to get peace and prosperity in your life..."

However, while picking up my days I started having a different approach at this thing which is called religion. What is the meaning of religion? Does God exist? 24 years of age right now and I've been an atheist for more than half of my life. The God Delusion is a book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.

In his book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in God qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's observation that when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity and when many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.

I should admit that I have not got the opportunity to go through his book but I've been really inspired by his beliefs and ideas when I watched him on BBC World some days ago. I come from a religious family as are an estimated 86% of the world's population. So, in this regard I belong to the minority group referred as non-religious. Still, I am firm on my beliefs and I would like to hear about your perceptions and beliefs in God and religion.

Last edited by Varun on Mon 4 Jan 2010 - 19:45; edited 6 times in total (Reason for editing : Update)

A state of negation. Negation is the most positive action, not positive assertion. This is a very important thing to understand. Most of us so easily accept positive dogma, a positive creed, because we want to be secure, to belong, to be attached, to depend. The positive attitude divides and brings about duality. The conflict then begins between this attitude and others. But the negation of all values, of all morality, of all beliefs, having no frontiers, cannot be in opposition to anything. A positive statement in its very definition separates, and separation is resistance. To this we are accustomed, this is our conditioning. To deny all this is not immoral; on the contrary to deny all division and resistance is the highest morality. To negate everything that man has invented, to negate all his values, ethics and gods, is to be in a state of mind in which there is no duality, therefore no resistance or conflict between opposites. In this state there are no opposites, and this state is not the opposite of something else.

SCIENCE BELIEVERS GO AND FUCK THEMSELVES!!

ALL OF US ARE JUST LIKE A GIGO ULTRA PROCESSOR..

"PLEASE GOD 4GIVE EVERYONE WHO WROTE SOMETHING UNKNOWINGLY ON THIS TOPIC"

Well for me, there is a possibility that He exists as well as may not. Some times I feel that God created Human beings, just like Human Beings created him...you see what I mean? The Society 'created' God in a sense, to maintain what we call social order and respect among each other.

In general people react by fear of God. It is there in their minds that if they do not act in a specific and expected way, they might be punished and so on.

As for if God exist, personally, for me somewhere in my heart, yes. God is the Sun for me. He is light that chases darkness. He is also in my heart. To believe is one thing, to know damn for sure is one other thing. I partly believe but I don't know, like most of you here I guess.

Oh concerning what Abhishek wrote just above about science believers and all, well I think we all need everything and everyone here. Be it scientists or priests or sinners. It is what make the world go round. you know, in every thing you need just the opposite of it. for a bulb to light, both -ve and +ve. black and white. religion and science...

Varuni wrote:science is both -ve and +ve like religion is both +ve and -ve

I don't think we can compare science with religion. Religion is based on assumptions and beliefs whereas science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice, that is, it is purely based on facts.

Also, I don't think we can judge science as being a negative or positive thing. Take the example of a knife, it is a tool used for cutting (broadly used in kitchens) but it can also be used for dangerous acts like stabbing someone.

It's all in our hands and it depends on our mentality and our viewpoint. I don't want to be aggressive right now but I'm tempted. See, I'm an IT student and I make use of science in my everyday learning. I will find it absurd if you qualify science as a negative aspect. What I mean is that should I be looked as a potentially dangerous person?

Now as far as firewalking is concerned, this is also very simple and anybody who has studied a little bit of physics in his secondary level of school will surely tell you that when two bodies of different temperatures meet, the hotter body will cool off, and the cooler body will heat up, until they are separated or until they meet at a temperature in between. What that temperature is, and how quickly it is reached, depends on the thermodynamic properties of the two bodies. The important properties are temperature, mass, specific heat capacity, and thermal conductivity.

The product of mass and specific heat capacity is called heat capacity and tells how much heat energy the body needs to raise its temperature by a specific quantity. Since the heat taken in by the cooler body must be the same as the heat given by the hotter one, the end temperature will lie closer to the temperature of the body with the greater heat capacity. The bodies in question here are human feet, which mainly consist of water, and burning coals.

Due to these properties, these are the factors that act together to prevent the foot from burning:

Water has a very high heat specific capacity, whereas coals have a very low one. Therefore the foot's temperature will change considerably less than the coal's.

Water also has a high thermal conductivity, and on top of that, the blood in the foot will carry away the heat and spread it. On the other hand, coal has a poor thermal conductivity, so the hotter body consists only of the parts of the coal which is close to the foot.

When the coal cools down, its temperature sinks below the flash point, so it stops burning, and no new heat is generated.

The coals are often covered with ash, which is a poor heat conductor.

The coals are a very uneven surface, and the actual surface area of foot touching the coals is very small.

Firewalkers do not spend very much time on the coals, and they keep moving.

Calluses on the feet may offer an additional level of protection, even if only from pain.

The first Pillar of Islam is for the believer to testify, in Arabic, that "There is no god but God and that Muhammad is His messenger." This phrase, known as the shahada, (sha-HEH-da) or Profession of Faith, is central to Islam, for it affirms both God's oneness and the central role of the Prophet. The shahada appears in daily life in many different ways, from being proclaimed in the call to prayer to being inscribed on flags and coins. Muslims constantly call on God by name in all sorts of situations. For example, when beginning any activity, one might say bismillah ("in the name of God") or when admiring something, one might say al-hamdu lillah ("praise be to God").

2. Worship (Salat):

The second Pillar of Islam is to worship God five times a day — at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and nightfall. To do so, the believer washes according to a particular ritual and prostrates himself or herself on the ground in the direction of Mecca, while reciting certain phrases. This rite takes only a few minutes to perform and can be done anywhere.

Worshippers are summoned to prayer by a muezzin, who calls the faithful together by saying:

God is Great (four times)

I testify that there is no god but God (twice)

I testify that Muhammad is God's messenger (twice)

Come to prayer (twice),

Come to salvation (twice)

God is Great (twice)There is no god but God.

For the dawn prayer, the muezzin adds, after the second "Come to salvation," the phrase "Prayer is better than sleep" twice.

Muslims believe that the call to prayer by the human voice distinguishes Islam from Judaism, which uses the shofar, or ram's horn, and Christianity, which uses the bell. The first muezzin was Bilal, a Black Abyssinian slave who was one of the first converts to Islam.

In addition to the five daily prayers, all male believers are enjoined to gather together on Friday for the noon prayer and listen to a sermon, called a khutba in Arabic, by the leader of the community. The rules for women's attendance at Friday worship have varied over time and place. In many places today, women also attend Friday worship, although they are segregated from the men and pray behind, beside or above them. As the ruler's name is traditionally invoked in the sermon, the khutba became an important sign of the ruler's authority.

3. Fasting (Sawm):

The third Pillar of Islam is to abstain from food and drink, as well as smoking and sex, between sunrise and sunset during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Muslim calendar.

Abstinence during Ramadan brings Muslims to greater awareness of God's presence and helps them acknowledge their gratitude for God's provisions in their lives. It serves to heighten a sense of community among believers as Muslims around the world join together in the performance of this ritual.

The Arabic word ramadan comes from a root meaning "to be hot" and suggests that the month originally fell in the summer. But following the Islamic lunar calendar, the month of fasting can come at any time during the year.

To distinguish themselves from the Jews, Christians and pagan Arabs, Muslims measure their year by the cycles of the moon rather than the sun, so the Muslim lunar year is eleven days shorter than the Christian solar year. Muslims are forbidden to adjust their year by adding an extra month, as the Jews do to keep their lunar calendar in synch with the seasons. Hence, the months of the Muslim year do not relate to the seasons.

The Ramadan fast starts at dawn, defined as the moment when the human eye can distinguish a white thread from a black one, and ends at dusk, when the eye is again no longer able to distinguish the difference. The end of the month of Ramadan is always marked by a feast, known as the Id al-Fitr, or break-fast feast.

4. Almsgiving (Zakat):

The fourth Pillar of Islam is to give alms to the poor. Muslims are supposed to donate a fixed amount of their property to charity every year.

Many pious individuals, from the mightiest rulers to modest merchants, give money to help out the less-fortunate by establishing soup kitchens, hospitals, schools, libraries, mosques, and the like. One of the most common forms of charity in medieval Islamic cities was to establish a public drinking fountain, where fresh, sweet water was distributed freely to all passers-by. Such a drinking fountain was commonly known as a sabil, from the common Arabic expression fi sabil allah, literally meaning "in the path of God" and referring to doing something for God charitably or disinterestedly.

5. Pilgrimage (Hajj):

The fifth Pillar of Islam is to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one's lifetime, if one is able, during the first days of Dhu'l-Hijja, the twelfth month of the Muslim calendar.

People who have performed this pilgrimage, called in Arabic hajj, earn the epithet hajji, which is a title of great respect. Before entering Mecca, the pilgrim dons a special garment made of two seamless white cloths. The ceremonies of the pilgrimage are associated with the prophet Abraham and center on the Kaaba, which Muslims believe to be the house that Abraham erected for God.

The pilgrimage then moves to Arafat, a plain some 12 miles east of the city, where the ceremonies culminate on the tenth day of the month in the Feast of the Sacrifices. Livestock is sacrificed in commemoration of Abraham's readiness to offer his son Ismail, and the meat is distributed to the poor. This event is also known as the Great Feast, and it usually lasts three or four days.

In contrast to the spontaneous cheer with which people celebrate the end of Ramadan, the celebration of the Great Feast is a more solemn holiday. Although a visit to the Prophet's mosque and gravesite in Medina is not an official part of the pilgrimage, most pilgrims include it in their trip.

My teacher taught me that 'Everything happens for a reason' and my mum taught me that 'Everything happens for the best'...God exists or not, I don't know..but what I know is that it is something we have lived with for years now...he might not exist but he lives with us and within us...He is the only one who will always be there for us...how many times have I seen my mum crying in the pooja ghar, how many times I have seen people in tears in temples and how many times have I myself cried before him??...He is the one who makes justice prevail...all you need is patience...kuma zot dir sak la desann ena so la monte ek sakenn so zur!!!xXxBabs

What to explain? What BabliGirl just said is purely based on assumptions and she has herself admitted it indirectly. Not a single theist has been able to prove his/her beliefs. Prove it first and then stress on it, not the other way round.

HmmMMVarun has clearly not come across the satellite photos of the bridge Ram built with the help of Hanuman and his friends to go rescue Sita...Well I was fortunate enough to see them...Monn gayn frison sa zur la!! Finalman mo ti gayn mo prev...XxXBabsP.S: Varun what you believe is in your heart...and we can't force you to believe anything...Muah

Why do you people don't read the whole topic first before asking repeated and already answered questions?

visham wrote:GET A FCKIN LIFE PPL! God or not god, there's nothg except the present, so make the most of it!

I believe Visham is quite right about the fact that there is nothing except the present and nobody has till now been able to really back their beliefs about the existence of God.

Come on people, what's the use of praying in front of God? Does it really help? Can't we be better human beings without God? Can't we live without God? Can't we simply believe in ourselves and our present for a better future?

Last edited by Varun on Sat 24 May 2008 - 15:37; edited 1 time in total